


Modern Technology

by Severina



Category: Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Genre: Community: smallfandomfest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-27
Updated: 2012-05-27
Packaged: 2017-11-06 03:16:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/414111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When John gets a new cell phone, he considers Matt his personal tech support.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Modern Technology

**Author's Note:**

> Written for LJ's smallfandomfest, for the prompt "the right to remain silent". Also inspired by the prompt 'cell phone' given to me by persnickett back in the Let's Get Sev Writing Again days, when I was struggling with inspiration. Yes, I hold on to _everything_. (Also, I have never played _Portal_ and that one paragraph is based on what I learned at Wikipedia. Please don't shoot me, gamers.)
> 
> * * *

Matt is mere inches away from reaching the final Portal when the pounding starts on his door. 

He tries to ignore it, his thumb hovering over the pause button. But if he'd ignored it the last time a particularly vigorous knock interrupted him while he was concentrating, he'd currently be so many charcoal briquettes in a ceramic urn on his parents mantle, and shit like that tends to stay with a person. And by the time he huffs out a breath and slams his thumb down on the button, it's too late anyway. Chell has already plummeted into a black hole and the last five hours are lost.

Aaaand great, now he's going to need a new controller.

"Fucking motherfucker," he mutters as he stomps to the door, deliberately crushing the controller – which landed almost exactly halfway between the chair and the door, spewing plastic parts everywhere – beneath the heel of his sneaker.

He doesn't bother to look out the peephole, because fucking _five hours down the drain_ , which is why he's not prepared to swing open the door on Detective John McClane, who's wearing much the same look as he had six months ago.

"Oh, you've gotta be kidding me, I swear I'm not even coding right now, I'm playing—"

"Lucy says I don't talk to her enough."

Okay, so the last he heard on the ongoing McClane-Gennero word war, Lucy had declared that she never wanted to talk to John again. Granted, that was about two weeks ago, so there had no doubt been multiple salvos tossed back and forth in the last fourteen days. Still, Lucy usually texts him to gripe about John on at least a weekly basis, and he realizes now that there's been nothing. Not a single _my fucking father_. Not a hint of _I'm going to KILL John_. He's not sure whether to feel grateful that she hadn't bothered him – because honestly, Lucy in full rant mode was actually almost as frightening as a gun to the head, and he knows this from experience – or weirdly resentful that he's suddenly been taken out of the loop.

"She wants me to get this tweet thing," John continues, shoving his way past Matt into the apartment and thrusting something small and streamlined into Matt's hands. 

Matt fumbles with the… yeah… cell phone, glances up at John through his bangs. "Hey, John. How you doing? Good to see you, too. Oh hey, don't stand on formality, come on in."

"Yeah," John says. "Hey, kid. So the guy at the store said I need that."

Matt closes and bolts the door – and okay, so maybe he turns away so John can't actually _see_ him roll his eyes – and then turns his attention to the cell. He gives a low whistle. "Okay, this is top of the line. The last I heard this shit was still in beta testing, but I guess… yeah, I think the release was two days ago, actually." He looks up, shakes his head. "Dude really saw you coming."

John's eyes narrow. "It's no good?"

"No, no, it's actually… very good. Too good for you. You'd probably have done better with something simpler." He frowns, shakes his hair out of his eyes. "No problem, I can show you the basics. What kind of data plan did you get?"

John stares at him blankly.

"You did get a data plan?"

"What's a data plan?"

Matt sighs.

* * *

"It doesn't work," John says without preamble three days later.

Matt's just gotten to bed after a seventy-two hour marathon session, working out the kinks for a new virus protection download that is scheduled to go live in a mere six days, and he's actually having trouble staying vertical. Or remembering his name. Or figuring out anything beyond the simplest equation, like _bed + pillow – computer = sleep_. Anything more complicated than that just might kill him.

He leans against the doorjamb. "You're kidding, right?"

John just shoves the phone at his bare chest, plows his way into the apartment. Again. "When I try to do anything it just beeps."

Matt scrubs at his eyes with the heel of his hand, manages to shut the door before stumble-walking into the living room. John has already done his usual slow sharp-eyed circle in the middle of the room – Matt's never sure if he's checking that all windows are locked and secure, or making sure that there's no ninja assassins hiding behind the curtains, or what – and is now looking at him expectantly. Matt realizes that he's still got John's new cell phone clutched in one numb hand. He glances down at it dumbly, hitches up the waistband of his pants and tries to blink the sleep out of his eyes.

John's eyes drop sharply to the waistband of his sleep pants, linger there for a long second before raising again to his face. "Were you sleeping?"

Matt opens his mouth, fully intending to explain – again – about how his job, the thing that nets him the money he needs to do stuff like eat, doesn't actually have set hours. He's going to explain that he's been working and he's tired and how he's not actually McClane's personal tech support. But then he realizes that his mouth has actually gone kind of dry, and maybe that whole part about not remembering his name when John came to the door was kind of because the little sleep he did get involved a very elaborate dream about John and the counter in his tiny kitchenette and how really, _really_ hot beard stubble feels on someone with extremely sensitive nipples. Like him.

Oh.

And with John giving him that laser stare, he's not entirely sure he could manage anything more than a squeak right now. So yeah, probably best to mentally invoke his right to remain silent.

John sighs. "It's fucking three p.m. On a _Saturday_. Jeeesus, kid, you gonna sleep your goddamn life away?"

And Matt really should say something, but then John is nudging him toward the sofa, one big hand splayed warm on the bare skin on the small of his back, and now he can smell him, the wet leather of his jacket – it must be snowing – and the slightly spicy scent of his cologne and the faint hint of the smoke he must have grabbed on the way over. And Matt kind of loses all capacity for higher brain function. 

"Flick on the tube, the Rangers," John calls over his shoulder once Matt has plunked his ass on the sofa and John is heading for the kitchen. "I'll grab us a couple of beers, we can watch the game while you figure out what's going on with that piece of shit."

When Matt wakes up six hours later, the TV is off and there's a plaid blanket that he doesn't remember owning drawn up over his shoulders.

* * *

Matt manages to solve John's next cellular crisis over the phone four days later, and when he doesn't get any frantic emails or unexpected visits after that, he figures the immediate danger is past. As long as McClane doesn't fiddle with the pre-sets he painstakingly explained about seventy five times.

Then his phone rings.

Matt glances at the call display, bites his lip. The last time he spoke to John – when solving the It Only Lets Me Dial Bruno's Pizza And I Don't Like Their Slices That Much, Kid challenge – he'd sat in the dark of his apartment for ten minutes after hanging up, then gone to the shower to jerk off. He'd come with more intensity than he had since… well, since he'd gotten home from the hospital after the aborted fire sale and could still easily call up the memory of John's big, bulky body pressed against his, shielding him from bullets and explosions and flying cars, and the way John's mouth twisted in that little half-smirk when he was amused. Now it's the goddamn voice that does it to him, all smoky-whiskey-rough, and the memory of John's hand on the small of his back. 

He's pathetic. 

He clears his throat, runs through a couple of low-voiced practice '" _hey_ 's'" before answering to make sure he sounds completely normal, then flicks his finger over the answer button. "Hey!" he says. So far, so good. "McClane. What's up?"

"I'm gonna throw this fucking shit in the trash, that's what up," John growls.

Matt leans back on the sofa, closes his eyes. John talking about trashing cell phones should not sound _hot_. Something is seriously wrong with him. "What's the problem now?"

"It's playing a video."

Matt rubs a hand over his jaw. "Okay? Am I to assume that you don't want it to play a video?"

"Of course I don't want it to play a goddamn…" John bites out. Matt hears him take a deep breath before continuing slowly and infinitely more patiently. "I'm tellin' you, kid. All it will do is play this video of some goddamn carrot top singing about how he's never gonna give you up."

Matt sits up straighter. "Wait a minute. You got… rickrolled? On your _phone_?"

"I don't know what that _means_ , Matthew. Can you fix it?"

"But how did you manage to…" Matt shakes his head. "Never mind. Yeah, I can fix it. I'm sure I can… yeah, I mean how hard can it be to… just, why don't I meet you at Girabal—"

"I'm two minutes away," John interrupts.

"Or you could come here," Matt says drily. He glances down at his chito-stained T-shirt, then at the pizza boxes and empty cans of root beer and PBR strewn around the apartment. Not that he has to impress John, but a little warning would be nice. Maybe. He scrubs a hand over his jaw again. At least he shaved this morning. 

"It's colder than a witch's tit out here," John says. "Put on some coffee, would ya?"

"Sure, I can…" Matt raises a brow, slides the phone closed. "…fix you some coffee," he finishes to the empty room.

He heads to the kitchen. Puts the kettle on. Dumps some Folgers in a couple of mugs that look reasonably clean. And resolutely tells himself that he will not drool, squeak, or otherwise make an ass of himself during this visit.

Five minutes later he turns and--

"Whoa! Okay," Matt says, pulling his arms up and narrowly avoiding dousing John's chest with two full steaming cups of coffee. "There's this thing called a knock, John. Not exactly new. You raise your hand and rap your knuckles on—"

"Sorry, kid," John says. They're still pressed chest to chest, Matt's arms held out awkwardly at his sides. And – Matt tilts his head to the side, studies him to be sure – yeah, John doesn't actually look very sorry.

What John looks like, is cocky.

Matt clears his throat. "A little help here, McClane?"

And maybe it's because they're in the damn kitchenette, home to so many of his more interesting dreams of late, or maybe it's because John is standing so close that he can feel his breath on his skin, feel the steady rhythm of his heart. Maybe it's because their fingers tangle when John reaches out to take one of the mugs, sending up a little flash of electricity between them. Maybe it's because John just doesn't stop _staring_ at him.

Maybe he's just tired of thinking about it all the damn time.

Matt leans forward, slides his lips against John's. It's an awkward angle and at first it's more pressure and some creative lip-squirming on his part than an actual kiss, and John doesn't exactly seem to be reciprocating the not-kiss so he thinks he may actually get a punch in the nose when he's done. But then John shifts, the hand that's not half-wrapped around the mug landing on his hip, fingers curling and uncurling. Matt manages to set down the mugs – he's pretty sure one crashes into the sink, whatever -- and then John is taking a step forward until Matt is backed against the corner and their hips are flush and John's mouth opens beneath his and _oh_. 

When they pull apart a few minutes later John drops his head to Matt's neck, his shoulders moving. It takes Matt a couple of seconds to realize that John is laughing.

"Uh," he says. Okay, _pants_. And okay, he's always felt pretty secure in his sexual prowess – fine, there haven't been a lot of partners through the years, but the ones that he's had haven't had any complaints, nor have they ever felt the need to chortle against him like a chipmunk on speed after a nice lengthy session of tonsil hockey. So maybe he's suddenly not feeling as secure as he thought. "Let me in on the joke?"

John looks up, still grinning. He tugs the cell phone out of his jacket pocket, tosses it into the mess of spilled coffee and cream. "Jesus Christ, kid," he says, " how many times did I have to break this thing before you finally got the goddamn point?"

Oh.


End file.
